


Vampire Taint

by Tarlan



Category: Blade (Movie Series)
Genre: Character Study, Community: smallfandomfest, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-23
Updated: 2011-07-23
Packaged: 2017-10-21 16:42:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/227361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He felt him before he knew he existed; he tasted him on the air before he ever saw his face; and the lightest touch of his hand was enough to hold him in place, flush against his body. Hannibal has, ever since the Cure, been able to fight whatever residual vampiric instinct he might still possess, but he can't fight Drake's call.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vampire Taint

**Author's Note:**

> Written for SmallFandomFest FEST09 2011

When Danica Talos turned him all those years ago, Hannibal had hated her touch and hated her scent but could do little about it. Whistler saved him. For some reason he knew Hannibal was different to all of the other vampires--that he had no love for what he had become. The years spent being fucked and sucked by Danica were hazy from the weakness of his constantly half-drained body, leaving him little more than a fuck toy for the avaricious vampire. He had no love for her or for any of the others she loaned him out to during those long years. After his escape she had tried to hunt him down, wanting him back, but he had always managed to evade her, mostly by killing any vampires or their familiars that came close to locating the Nightstalkers.

He never revealed all of the horror of those five years of sexual slavery but perhaps he hadn't needed to. The other Nightstalkers had their own horror stories to tell, of lost loved ones and personal tragedies at the hands and sharp teeth of the vampires. Each of them had their own way of coping, and for Hannibal, he used words as his shield. Silly quips and nonsense, taunts and jests, anything to keep people at arm's length. Except the people he had come to admire, respect and--yes--love, had seen beyond the flippancy, seeing his words as a scab crusted over a damaged psyche.

None of them had ever been a vampire. None of them had tasted and seen the world through mutated DNA, or felt that strange calling in his mind that provided a hunger too deep to be assuaged even by the drinking of human blood. It was like a faint scent--direction-less, floating on the wind, making him hunger, desire and lust without knowing what he needed or wanted. All of the vampires felt it to a greater or lesser degree, but only Danica had hunted for the cause--successfully.

The first time Drake touched him, he ignited a powerful response in Hannibal's body, proving that the vampire taint had not been completely eradicated from him by Whistler's cure. He felt helpless in the ancient vampire's powerful grip, body held flush against Drake's strong body. The vampire-taint of him desperately wanted to submit to the rush of pleasure while the mostly human part rebelled at the very thought of becoming subjugated to the will of another again, ordering Abby and Blade to shoot Drake. Five years had been long enough and he would rather die than face that fate again.

Drake could have killed him there and then but chose to wound him instead. Hannibal doubted it was because Drake had taken a shine to him. He simply wanted to get Blade alone, aware that the only other member of the three-man team would stay behind to deal with Hannibal's injury. It was a precise puncture wound, causing maximum pain for minimum damage, the kind of wound that would heal in seconds if he had still been a vampire.

Back at the Nightstalkers' headquarters, he felt spaced out on the morphine Sommerfield had injected into him to take the edge off the pain so he wasn't too perturbed to see Whistler standing beside his bed. It wouldn't be the first time he had hallucinated as he recovered from broken bones or minor internal injuries brought on by hand-to-hand fighting with creatures possessing almost twice his strength and greater agility. Human bodies really were pretty frail compared to their vampire counterparts.

"Dude...You're dead," he remarked, but the hand that clamped across his mouth and nose was anything but ghostly. It was solid and real, and the scent and taste of the skin sparked genetic memory within the vampire-tainted part of his being that had him craving for more. Already too weak from the wound, pain and drugs, he succumbed quickly to the loss of air.

When he awoke some time later, Hannibal knew Drake was still close by. The ancient vampire's scent was so strong that Hannibal could almost taste him on the air. All his senses seemed attuned to Drake's scent but it was Danica who stepped into the room with her brother and that stupid fuckwit, Jarko Grimwood. After that, it all went to pieces--quite literally as he saw vampires turn to ash around him until all that was left was him on the stairs with Danica, still too weak to fight back though this time it was from the too recent wounding and the fight with Jarko rather than the constant draining of his blood. Once more he could not shake her tight grip on his throat but knew she would not allow him the blessing of a quick death. He could see in her eyes that she wanted to put him back in his place--on his knees before her or weak and abused in her bed.

When she released him suddenly, her face turning black as the DayStar virus attacked her vampire DNA, Hannibal fled, leaving her to her gristly fate because she deserved to die slowly. She deserved to feel her life-force slipping away rather than have a swift end. He found Abby and together they check on Blade.

"He has a pulse but it's extremely low," Abby stated. "Hannibal?"

He turned back to where she was crouched next to Blade, tearing his eyes away from the fallen Drake. "We need to get out of here before the cops find us."

"Then help me," Abby snarled.

For a moment he was torn between the sight of Drake's prone body and Abby's pleading eyes...but even though Drake's scent was filling all the dark corners in his soul, his humanity won out. Between them, they hefted Blade's densely muscled body, an arm draped over their shoulders, and staggered away, grateful to find Caulder waiting for them below with the SUV. Hannibal saw the flashing blue and red arriving on the scene as they peeled around the corner.

****

 **Two Months Later:**

Hannibal had felt sick for a week following the release of DayStar and knew it was because it had targeted the vampire cells still tainting his body, but being mostly human saved him. It took a few more weeks before he felt fully recovered from the stab wound Drake had inflicted on him, and in all those weeks they had seen and heard nothing from the vampires. The newspapers were full of stories though, of inexplicable deaths from a sort of plague where the bodies disintegrated into ash when touched by Ultraviolet or sunlight. The plague spread around the globe and, for once, it was the vampires who were on the run.

Hannibal stood outside by the rail and gazed across the harbor, breathing in the salty sea air. The taste of Drake on the air was gone but Hannibal knew it was because of the death of his vampire taint rather than Drake's death. A leaked police report had mentioned discovering Blade in Danica's headquarters, with the body mysteriously disappearing from the morgue leaving behind a trail of dead and some drained bodies. Except he and Abby had taken Blade from the building before the cops arrived. Drake was alive. Despite the DayStar virus using his blood to target all vampires, he had survived the infection, perhaps because he could alter his DNA sufficiently by shifting his form.

He shivered because it meant the threat from the vampires had not ended. Drake would spawn more of his kind, and these would not be weak from thousands of years of mutation. These would be daywalkers like him--and like Blade.

"And you will be the first of them."

Hannibal spun around but strong hands clamped onto his arms before he could defend himself.

"NO!" He cried out as Drake bent his head to the side, exposing his throat, jerking as sharp incisors sank into vulnerable flesh to pierce the carotid. He sagged against Drake as he felt the blood sucked from his body, growing weak in seconds until only Drake's inhuman strength kept him on his feet.

Drake pulled back, licking the iron-rich blood from his lips before drawing Hannibal's mouth to his own throat. Too weak to resist, Hannibal sobbed as he felt the thick blood on his lips, felt it slip into his mouth and trickle down his throat.

Drake petted him as the thirst took over and he drank deeply.

"It will not be the same this time. I will not enslave you to me, Hannibal King. You will come to me of your own free will."

He let Hannibal pull back. "Never."

Drake gave him an indulgent smile before leaning in and kissing him deeply, letting the taste of their blood mingle. When he was only tainted by his former vampire blood, the call of Drake had been an itch in the back of his mind but now he felt the full draw. Now he understood why Drake had considered Danica and the modern vampires so weak, and why he had let Blade live. His blood felt alive, surging with a thirst that had little to do with taking from humans but that had everything to do with the vampire king holding him so tight.

As Drake deepened the kiss and crushed Hannibal to him, stealing his breath and his heart, Hannibal knew he would never be human again.

END


End file.
